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Obituaries R


Raymond Astbury


aymond George Astbury (Ray) was born in Birkenhead in 1932 and spent his early years in Rhyl, North Wales.


He left the sixth form of Rhyl Grammar School in 1948 to work in the local Urban


District Council Public Library and in 1950-51 he became a student at Loughborough Library School and completed his ALA.


He was called up for Nation- al Service in the army and was posted to the Leicestershire Regiment. Showing considerable promise in his basic training he was transferred to the Royal Army Educational Corps and promoted to Sergeant-Instructor, teaching firstly in an Army Education Cen- tre in Germany and subsequently working in the Army Command Library in B.A.O.R H.Q. Most of


the soldiers he left behind in the Leicestershire Regiment went on to serve in the Korean War.


After his demobilisation he was appointed as an Assis- tant Librarian on the enquiry desk in the Picton Reference Library of Liverpool City Libraries, and then as the Senior Assistant Librarian in the Commercial Library, at that time sited in the business centre of the city. After gain- ing his FLA by part-time study he was appointed Branch Librarian of West Derby, Liverpool. In l960 he became Tutor-Librarian in Padgate College of Education, Lancashire, where he designed, stocked and set-up a library to meet the needs of staff and students as the College developed from an institution providing a two- year diploma course into one providing an undergraduate three-year BEd course.


In l963 he held the post of Assistant Lecturer in the Birmingham Library School for one term before returning to Liverpool as a Lecturer in bibliography and reference


Richard Harvey W


ith his vast knowledge of genealogical sources, Richard Harvey – who died in hospital on 30 November, aged 79 – was for many years the backbone of the Printed Books Section at Guildhall Library, City of London.


He was approachable, gently humorous, wise, and always willing to be of assistance. However, he could (with good reason) lose patience with family historians pursuing ten- uous links to Henry VIII or William the Conqueror, and several colleagues recall him shaking his head vigorously at such people and saying ‘I’m sorry, but you’re just wast- ing your time’.


Richard Alan Martin Harvey attended Merchant Tay-


lors’ School, Northwood and Selwyn College, Cambridge where he read Classics and in 1968 was a postgraduate


52 INFORMATION PROFESSIONAL


student at the then North Western Polytechnic School of Librarian ship. Towards the end of the course, a post of Assistant Cataloguer at Guildhall Library was advertised, Richard was appointed and started work there on 1 Jan- uary 1969: this was a working day as New Year’s Day did not become a Bank Holiday in England until 1974. In January 1971 he was transferred to the Enquiry Desk to work as a Research Assistant and, later, Assistant Keeper and was soon established as Guildhall Library’s genealogi- cal expert at a time when family history was capturing the public imagination and encouraging the general public to delve into complex and arcane sources such as parish reg- isters, census returns and Livery Company records. This was, of course, before major indexing projects had made life easier for the public and for librarians. Richard had the academic skills and attention to detail


March 2023


work within the Department of Professional Studies in the Liverpool College of Commerce. He remained in Liverpool as lecturer, senior lecturer, and principal lecturer for the next 30 years as the College was absorbed by the Polytechnic and later became Liverpool John Moore`s University. The scope of his teaching in the early years concentrated mainly on bibliography and reference work (Bibliogra- phy and Book Production, Pergamon Press, 1967) but his interests became increasingly focussed on library in society studies, with a special emphasis on the public library`s role in adult education, in the provision of information services, and in social inclusion issues in public library work.


He was for many years a National Councillor of the


Library Association, serving as Vice-President, Chair of the International Committee, and President in 1993. He had previously served as President of the North Western Branch in 1991. He was a Senior Examiner of the LA, an External Examiner at Leeds Metropolitan University, Manchester Metropolitan University, and the University of North London.


Ray was a delightful colleague, vastly knowledgeable about his subject area and the profession in general and was extremely generous in his willingness to support and encourage. The quality of his advice was enhanced by a sometimes (and only when appropriate) fantastic skill at finding humour in the least promising situations and then embellishing it with a pithy and focused anecdotes – of which he seemed to have a limitless supply! Ray died 20 December 2021. His wife, Alwen, died three weeks later. They had been happily married for 68 years. They are survived by their son David, who is Legal Counsel for the Hume Institute for Postgraduate Studies, which is based in Lausanne, Switzerland, and two granddaughters, Jane and Kate.


Keith Trickey


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